Watermark (The Emerald Series Book 3)

by James, Kimberly

  "What am I doing here?" he asked as if I'd coerced him into meeting me against his will.

  I spent a few seconds crumbling my straw paper between my fingers. "I wanted to talk and you’re the only person I know, that I trust, that doesn’t have a history with me or Jamie. I could use some objectivity.”

  He relaxed against his seat and his expression lost some of its pensiveness. “I think you're overestimating my ability to be objective in this situation, but I'll try."

  "Okay," I muttered. "What do I do?"

  He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “This is my attempt at objectivity. You’re eighteen years old. You shouldn’t be married. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. I’d love nothing more than for you to dump that—whatever you want to call him—and be with me. I’m not asking for forever. I know we each have goals, plans that will take us different directions, but I’m talking about the here and now. I really, really like you. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  “I don’t know.” I held my hands in my lap, fighting the real desire to reach over the table and grab Michael’s hand. That meant something, didn’t it? That I wanted to connect with him?

  “Well, how about this? Give me your hand.”

  “What?” I stammered. How could he know?

  “Your hand, Erin. Give it to me.”

  I did. So different from Jamie's touch. Michael's hand didn't dwarf mine. His gentle yet steady grip didn't overwhelm it completely. There was nothing smothering about the way my hand felt in his, the way I felt under his unfaltering gaze.

  “Having said all that, what you do with the rest of your life isn’t my call. It’s no one’s call but yours. As much as I’d like to, I can’t tell you what to do. I’m glad your husband's not dead and all, but I got to tell you, I’d make a better prom date.”

  I smiled weakly. Prom and graduation, the frills of senior year, things that seemed important to me a few weeks ago? Not so much anymore. We were discussing the rest of my life and the implications were huge, and not only for me. I’d yet to speak the D-word out loud, but that’s what we were talking about here. Me, at almost nineteen years old getting a divorce. Leaving Jamie. Hurting Jamie.

  “I thought he was dead and I thought I would die too. Only I didn’t. But my baby did. And for a year… I barely remember that year. Then it got easier. And then you came and…" I stalled, weighing the wisdom of continuing. His fingers squeezed mine. His lips parted as though he were about to say something. I wished he would. I wished he would stop me from voicing my next words. “And then you kissed me. I knew then I’d found myself again. I knew I could move on.”

  Michael blurred in the swell of unshed tears. “And he came back and while I was happy, part of me was angry. Because I knew he’d do it all over again. Make me lose myself. I can feel it happening, me wanting to give up everything for him.” My words ended in a whisper of shame. I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “I’m not ready. I’m not ready for him.”

  “Erin… ” Michael moved as if to come around the table and wrap his arms around me. I tensed in anticipation, but before he could make contact his eyes shifted over my shoulder and his hands fell back to the table.

  Silence descended in the restaurant, a drain in the atmosphere. Like when the power suddenly goes out and your senses are on alert because you know something is different, you just can’t figure out what until you register the sudden lack of energy. While the place wasn’t packed, there were maybe five other tables with patrons sitting at them. They were all looking toward the entrance, food forgotten, as if they too noticed the change and had found its source. A waitress with a tray circled with glasses of tea stalled by our table as though an invisible force prevented her from going farther.

  I peered over my shoulder knowing with a sinking heart what I would see—who I would see.

  Jamie stood twenty feet away. Close enough he could have heard every word I said. And while he stared at me, every patron, every bus boy, and waiter stared at him, as if proving Michael’s point. Jamie didn’t fit in. He never would. He could never go out in public without causing a stir. Jamie slowly took in the room, all the focused attention, his eyes settling on each astonished face, and I watched his expression change from desolation to pure defiance. His shoulders squared, making that granite chest strain against the t-shirt he wore. He had on a pair of board shorts, his feet bare underneath. Typical dress for our beach community, but he looked anything but typical. Because it was so apparent he wasn’t. Being in a room of landers only accentuated his difference, his absolute magnificence.

  A god among us mere humans.

  His blue aura bled into the air around him, pulsating with energy. He enthralled me, held me captivated, and not even Michael was immune to his dominance. My whole body burned for him, wanting him to wrap that energy around me and never let go.

  No, I wasn’t ready for Jamie. I was afraid I never would be.

  When his eyes finally settled on me again a jolt of electricity shot right through me, nearly causing me to jump out of my seat. Those eyes, hard as precious gems, demanded something of me. Was he asking me to choose right here, right now in this public place with all these witnesses? I sat unmoving, a sad mimic of my life, my indecision. Finally, when I didn't move, he headed for the door, his pace unhurried as if he refused to appear to be running away. And then he was gone, leaving a stunned silence behind him. The tension popped as though someone had snapped their fingers and released the room from a trance.

  “You want a refill, honey?” The waitress stood beside me, holding a pitcher of tea over my half-empty glass. I ignored her and slipped out of the booth, pushing past her toward the door.

  By the time I got to the sidewalk all I could see of Jamie was the back of his dark head moving away from me. No doubt he was headed for the beach, the one place he was lost to me.

  I felt Michael's presence behind me, the earthy smell of his cologne familiar. I turned and faced him, shame heating my cheeks. “I heard what you said in there, and I appreciate you being here for me when you have every reason not to. You're a good friend, Michael."

  “Yeah, I had hoped by now we’d be way past friends. But this isn't about taking sides. It's not about me or Jamie, it's about you."

  "I have to go," I said, giving him a quick hug then started off down the sidewalk. I had to find Jamie and make him understand. God, the look on his face. What was he even doing here?

  I crossed the road and took the boardwalk to the beach at a jog, knowing it was too late. The beach was relatively empty and Jamie was nowhere in sight.

  "He's gone."

  I turned at the sound of the voice. A man leaned on the railing. I must have run right passed him. The scent of dreamweed wafted on the air. Landers didn't smoke dreamweed. He was like Jamie, though I’d never seen this man before. I put him at a few years older than Jamie. His shoulder length brown hair was tucked behind his ears and he was looking at me as if he knew me.

  "Who?" I asked.

  "Jamie," he said behind a knowing smirk.

  "You know Jamie?"

  "I used to. I guess you could say we were friends at one time." He regarded me through another drag on his blunt. "Heard he was alive. He's something else, isn't he?"

  "Yes," I said, taking a few steps back the way I had come. The stranger was simply enjoying the evening. Nothing unusual about that. But there was something odd about the way he studied me, his eyes too intent for his casual pose. "He is."

  I turned on my heel and started back up the boardwalk, my spine tingling as I imagined him watching me. When I got to the end, I looked back over my shoulder but the man was gone.

  I headed for my Tahoe, shoving the odd encounter to the back of my mind. I needed to find Jamie.

  * * *

  As I knew it would be, searching for Jamie was an exercise in futility. But I needed to see him and explain what he'd overheard.

  I'd driven by his house and had parked out front, my feeling
s spinning in a cycle of confusion. It was the first time I could remember feeling like I couldn't talk to Noah, especially about Jamie. I'd meant what I said to Michael. He was the only person I knew who had even a smidgen of objectivity. And he'd done exactly what I'd hoped. He'd been blunt and honest, and that gave me the courage to admit the truth. I loved Jamie more than I loved myself, but if I hadn't gotten pregnant and he hadn't died, we might have still been together, but even two years later, we wouldn't have been talking marriage. We wouldn't have been talking a lifetime.

  My dad had cautioned us not to compound one mistake with another, and I couldn't help thinking that's just what we'd done. But I'd loved him so much I'd let my feelings for him muddy my judgment. I couldn't do that again. I wouldn't.

  When I pulled into my driveway, I was relieved my dad’s car wasn’t parked in the garage. I dreaded telling my dad what I was considering about as much as I dreaded telling Jamie. Instead of going into an empty house, I kicked off my sandals and put on an old pair of running shoes I had in the back of my Tahoe and took off at a jog.

  I'd missed this about volleyball—the physical release, the peace found in movement, the simple act of breathing. I kept my pace steady. This constant pounding of my feet over the pavement, the drum of my heartbeat setting a steady cadence. This wasn't about running anyway. This run was about settling in, finding a comfortable rhythm and sticking to it. I'd found a rhythm for my life but Jamie had burst back into it and I'd felt offbeat ever since. It was hard to admit I didn't know where he fit anymore. If he fit.

  By the time I made the three-mile loop back to my street, I felt better. My mind less cluttered but no less confused. The street lights had come on as dusk settled, and I walked the last forty or so yards to my house, regaining my breath, letting the sweat dry under the breeze.

  I slowed at the end of the driveway when I saw Jamie sitting on the porch. The light hanging over his head illuminated his face. From where I stood, the mark on his face looked like some kind of tribal tattoo, but as I drew closer, it turned into something more exotic. Like he was. An exotic, mythical creature too phenomenal for the humdrum life I needed right now.

  He rose to his feet as I approached, all six-foot-four plus inches, and it was like watching a giant wave rising in the ocean, powerful and spellbinding. Magic had touched him. Magic had knit him back together and put him in a world where he didn't belong. My heart pounded as if I'd run another three miles. I climbed on the bottom step and it put me on a level I didn't have to crane my neck to look in his eyes. He was different. I was different, but there was one thing that hadn't changed.

  “Why do I love you so much?” I asked, not really expecting an answer. Knowing there wasn't one. Everything about Jamie would always remain a mystery to me.

  "Because you're mine," he said and his mouth crashed down in a kiss that stole my thoughts. Stole my will. Here I'd thought I'd made some sort of decision and all Jamie had to do was kiss me, breathe into me, and I lost my whole mind. My mind swirled along with the melding of our tongues. He tasted so good. My arms circled around his neck and my legs hugged his waist as he lifted me off the step. He held me with one hand while the other reached for the front door. All I could think about was his mouth and his hands on me. Then he was climbing up the stairs, taking them two at a time, never once breaking our kiss. Sucking all the reason right out of me.

  He pushed the door to my room open with his foot. His mouth continued to play havoc with my senses as he lowered me to the end of the bed. I was a kite and he was the wind and I soared with sensation.

  It wasn't until I was settled on the bed he pulled his mouth away. His hands contoured to my ribs, my waist, then lower, sliding under the hem of my shirt. I helped him peel it over my head and tossed it on the floor.

  He was breathing heavy, as was I. He crouched in front of me, his hands on my thighs, squeezing with the slightest pressure. Anyone else would see those hands as grotesque. The world certainly would. As I sat there in only my bra and shorts, Jamie's heated gaze roved over me. One hand lifted, caressing its way over my elbow and up the slope of my biceps. My skin melted under his touch. He pushed the strap of my bra over one shoulder then did the same to the other. I waited, nearly breathless, for him to reach behind me and unclasp it, realizing he couldn't possibly work the tiny clasp. Not without a lot of effort, and it was like he was unwilling to appear inept in front of me. It would only add insult to injury.

  When I looked back into his face, shame resided in the depths of his eyes, outshining his hunger. He wore the same spiritless expression he had earlier when everyone in the restaurant had stopped what they were doing to stare. His fists bunched, hiding the webs linking his fingers.

  "Oh Jamie," I said on a breathy whisper.

  "Don't feel sorry for me." He'd never been ashamed of what he was, but I saw the doubt now, the flicker of it in his eyes as though he were passing judgment on himself.

  "I don't," I said, reaching behind me and doing what he wouldn't. My bra slid off and I tossed it on the floor along with my discarded shirt.

  Jamie expelled a long breath, nostrils flaring slightly. He ran his nose along the column of my throat. My body shivered and a moan escaped, the sound of my floundering resolve.

  “She kept trying to get me to forget. I knew I couldn’t.” His lips trailed over my jaw, up to my temple. My eyes closed and I swayed into him, seeking his heat, the touch of his skin.

  “I could never forget you,” he said, his warm breath tickling my ear. His eyes raked over me in a bold sweep, my body simmering everywhere his eyes touched. “You're unforgettably beautiful.”

  His lips took mine, teasing them open. One hand came up to cup my right breast, enveloping it as the pad of his thumb stroked gently. My whole existence, my every thought, centered on where he touched me.

  “Jamie,” I breathed across the gills at the back of his ear. He shuddered, letting out a long hiss before falling still.

  “I know you love me Erin, and God knows, I love you." His hand fell away and I wanted so badly to snatch it back and make him keep touching me. "But I also know how much you were hurt. In a lot of ways, you still are. And the last thing I want to do is cause you any more pain. I'll fight for us. I’ll do everything I can to make us work, but you have to want it too. I can’t want it for the both of us.” His gaze lingered on my face before he pushed to his feet and stepped back.

  My heart rolled over in panic. Was he leaving? Please don't leave. I grabbed his hand before he was out of reach, the bones of his wrist thick and strong. “Stay.”

  "I can't," he said, tugging his wrist free of my grasp. He looked up at the ceiling and I could see the question forming in his expression and the downward tilt of his mouth. "I just now realized the stars are gone."

  The stars he'd put there to remind me of him.

  His gaze dropped to mine and I wanted nothing more in that moment than to banish the sadness in his eyes.

  "Stay," I said, knowing I shouldn't. "We're married."

  For now, some part of my mind reminded me.

  “I know," he said. "But it doesn’t feel like enough.”

  29

  He was losing her. He could feel her slipping away. Panic stirred in his gut at the thought of losing her when all he wanted to do was take her in his arms, delve into the very core of her and find himself again. Walking away from her last night had been the hardest thing he'd ever done. Leaving her wanting on the bed. Wanting him.

  "Jamie," Marshall said, calling him back from his sullen thoughts.

  Jamie pretended the voracity of Marshall's gaze didn't make him nervous. Nervous didn't exist in the Deep. Panic didn't either. Not for him. But they existed here. He was about to decide this place—this life—was more dangerous than one in the Deep. There was more to lose here. People he cared about. The girl he loved.

  Jamie had come back to find the life his mind teased him with wasn't the life available to him anymore. The people were the same, but they'd c
hanged. All of them for the better. He was the one who'd changed for the worse. Even his mom was happy now. He'd doubted he would ever see her happy without his dad. He knew part of her newfound happiness stemmed from him being home, but Jamie knew she'd still be happy if he hadn't shown up alive.

  And damn if that didn't make him a pathetic piece of shit for being put off by the idea his family had gone on without him, chartered a life without him. And that always led to him thinking maybe he should have stayed away.

  As the cool breeze floated over his skin, Jamie couldn't help think how different his existence was now over what it had been a few weeks ago. Danger always lurked in the Deep, and he had a hard time distancing himself from the threats that no longer existed. His mind and body still waited for danger, expected it. Some unknown, unnamed threat. Relaxing took more effort than the workouts he'd been doing with Noah and Jeb every morning. Relaxing went against the grain of what his mind had been trained to do while he'd been in the Deep, the constant alertness he'd been forced into.

  "I'll tell you something off the record," Jamie said, still not comfortable revealing too much about what it had been like living in the Deep. Some things he preferred to keep to himself. Things he never wanted Erin to know. At the same time, he needed someone to understand his existence as a monster.

  "Okay." Marshall sat back in his chair, his interest clearly piqued.

  Jamie wondered if this was really what Marshall had been after when he'd shown up at the door with a six pack of beer. He’d wanted to hang out. Throw a few back on the patio. Did Marshall think Jamie suffered from PTSD? Was this Marshall's way of acting as his shrink? Guess it was working. Jamie never intended to volunteer anything about some of the things he'd done while he lived the life of an animal.

  "You don't actually sleep out there. There wasn't a time my mind ever completely rested. I would slow down. Hover in one place for long stretches of time, but I never truly slept. One time a smell roused me from my stupor, so strong it stung my nose." Jamie swallowed. He could still taste it. "I followed it. Couldn't stop myself. I must have swum a hundred miles before I found the source."